Educational Work of the Girl Scouts Part 1

Educational Work of the Girl Scouts.

by Louise Stevens Bryant.

Do you believe that girls should like to work at home, to cook and clean house and mind the baby? Do you believe that a girl should like to take care of her clothes and be able to make them; that she should know how to be thrifty and to conserve the family money in buying and using food and clothing; that she should play a fair game and put the group above her personal interests? Do you believe that she should value a strong healthy body above clothes and cosmetics, and rejoice in the hope of being some day the healthy mother of healthy children?

If you do, you believe in the Girl Scouts, for in this organization the girls learn all these things in such a happy way that they _like_ to do them, which means that they keep on doing them.

The Girl Scouts, a national organization, is open to any girl who expresses her desire to join, and voluntarily accepts the promise and the laws. The object of the Girl Scouts is to bring to all girls the opportunity for group experience, outdoor life, and to learn through work, but more by play, to serve their community. Patterned after the Girl Guides of England, the sister organization of the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts have developed a method of self-government and a variety of activities that appear to be well suited to the desires of the girls, as the 89,864 scouts and the 2,500 new applicants each month testify.

HISTORY AND GROWTH.

Girl Scouts and their leaders, to the number of 89,864, were in 1920 organized in every State, and in Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Alaska. There are troops in 1,400 cities, and local councils in 162 places. This represents a tremendous growth since the founding by Mrs. Juliette Low in March, 1912, of a handful of enthusiastic "Girl Guides" in Savannah, Ga. In 1915 the growth of the movement warranted its national incorporation; so headquarters were established in Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., and the name changed to Girl Scouts, Incorporated. In 1916 the headquarters were removed to New York, and are now located at 189 Lexington Avenue.

From the start the organization has been nonsectarian and open to all races and nationalities. Through the International Council the Girl Scouts are affiliated with the Girl Guides of England and all parts of the British Empire, and similar organizations in other parts of the world.

At the 1920 meeting of the international conference at London, reports were received from Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, Argentina, j.a.pan, China, and Siberia, as well as from all parts of the British Empire, and the United States.

From a members.h.i.+p of 9,769 in January, 1918, the girl scouts grew to 89,864 in 1921, at the rate of nearly 10 to 1 in three years. The greatest relative growth was in 1918, when the members.h.i.+p grew fourfold.

During 1919 the increase over the preceding year was more than two-thirds, while in 1920 the relative increase was one-third. The details are as shown in the accompanying table.

This growth is due to a spontaneous demand of community after community for scouting for girls, and not to deliberate propaganda on the part of the national headquarters. The reasons for it are therefore to be sought in the activities and methods themselves, which make such widespread appeal.

ACTIVITIES.

A glance through the handbook, Scouting for Girls, will show that the activities of the girl scouts center about the three interests--Home, Health, and Citizens.h.i.+p.

_Home._--The program provides incentives for practicing woman's world-old arts by requiring an elementary proficiency in cooking, housekeeping, first aid, and the rules of healthful living for any girl scout pa.s.sing beyond the Tenderfoot stage. Of the forty-odd subjects for which Proficiency Badges are given, more than one-fourth are in subjects directly related to the services of woman in the home, as mother, nurse, or home-keeper.

_Growth of Girl Scout members.h.i.+p, Jan. 1, 1918, to Jan. 1, 1921--Active registrations._

January 1. Officers. Increase. Scouts. Increase. Total. Increase.

1918 1,314 ...... 8,455 ...... 9,769 ......

1919 3,823 2,509 36,847 28,392 40,670 30,901 1920 5,357 1,534 61,754 24,907 67,111 26,441 1921 6,839 1,482 83,025 21,271 89,864 22,753

Into this work, so often distasteful because solitary, is brought the sense of comrades.h.i.+p. This is effected partly by having much of the actual training done in groups. Another element is the public recognition and rewarding of skill in this, woman's most elementary service to the world, usually taken for granted and ignored.

The spirit of play infused into the simplest and most repet.i.tious of household tasks banishes drudgery. "Give us, oh, give us," says Carlyle, "the man who sings at his work. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; altogether past comprehension its power of endurance."

While the place of most production is to-day outside the home, much of the final preparation of goods, particularly food and clothing, is still done there. So that, while the homecrafts are far from being the vital necessities they once were, they are still needed.

Handicrafts of many sorts enter into the program of the girl scouts. In camping, girls must know how to set up tents, build lean-to's, and construct fireplaces. They must also know how to make knots of various sorts to use for bandages, tying parcels, hitching, etc. Among the productive occupations in which Proficiency Badges are awarded are cooking, house planning, beekeeping, dairying and general farming, gardening, millinery, weaving, and needlework.

While production has left the home, consumption is increasingly the business of the home-keeping woman. There are few purchases, even for men's own use, which women do not have a hand in selecting. Practically the entire burden of household buying in all departments falls on the woman, who is thus in a position to learn how to spend wisely and make the most of each dollar. In France this has long been recognized, and the women of the middle cla.s.ses are the buying partners and bookkeepers in their husbands' business.

The girl-scout organization encourages thrifty habits and economy in buying in all of its activities. The scout troops are self-supporting, and are expected to earn most of their equipment by means of rallies, pageants, plays, as well as by individual effort. One of the 10 scout laws is that "A girl scout is thrifty."

_Health._--The girl scout learns that "a cheerful scout, a clean scout, a helpful scout is a well scout. She is the only scout that really _is prepared_." So that health, physical and mental, is the keynote to the scout activities, which are calculated to develop the habit of health, rather than simply to give information about anatomy or physiology.

Personal health is recognized by the badge of "Health Winner," given to the girl who for three months follows certain rules of living, such as eating only wholesome food, drinking plenty of water, going to bed early, exercising in the open air, and keeping clean, and who shows the result by improved posture, and by the absence of constipation and colds. Outdoor sports, swimming, boating, and dancing are other health-producing activities.

Of all health-promoting activities, camping is the best, and this means all stages of life in the open, from the day's hike, with one meal out of doors, to the overnight or week-end hike, and finally the real, big camp, open all summer. Girl scouts learn how to dress for outdoor living, how to walk without fatigue, and how to provide themselves with food, warmth, and shelter, so that "roughing it" does not mean being uncomfortable.

During 1920, 50 large girl-scout camps were maintained in 16 States.

These are self-supporting, and as they are open for 10 weeks as a rule and accommodate about 50 girls at a time, they give an opportunity to several thousand for the best sort of holiday.

The idea is to have enough camps to give every scout the experience. To promote this work national headquarters maintains a camping section and has published a book, "Campward Ho!" which gives full directions for organizing and running large, self-supporting camps for girls.

Community health habits are quite as important as the purely personal, and the older girl scout is expected to become a "health guardian,"

which means that she takes an intelligent interest in the things pertaining to public health, such as playgrounds, swimming pools, school lunches, the water and milk supplies, clean streets, the disposition of waste and garbage, the registration of births, and the prevention of infant mortality. She also learns how to help in times of emergency as first aid, in sickness as home nurse, and at any time as child nurse.

A scout whose mind is filled with interesting facts about birds and animals and trees, and who is busy playing games with her companions or in making useful and beautiful things and in rendering active service to her home and community, is apt to have a healthy mind without thinking much about it. And she has a little rule for the blue times, which is "to smile and sing under all difficulties."

_Citizens.h.i.+p._--The basic organization of the girl scouts into the self-governing unit of a patrol is in itself an excellent means of political training. Patrols and troops conduct their own meetings, and the scouts learn the elements of parliamentary law. Working together in groups, they realize the necessity for democratic decisions. They also come to have community interests of an impersonal sort. This is perhaps the greatest single contribution of the scouts toward the training of girls for citizens.h.i.+p. Little boys play not only together but with men and boys of all ages. The interest of baseball is not confined to any one age. The rules of the game are the same for all, and the smallest boy's judgment on the skill of the players may be as valid as that of the oldest "fan." Girls have had in the past no such common interests.

Their games have been either solitary or in very small groups, in activities largely of a personal character. If women are to be effective in modern political society, they must have from earliest youth gregarious interests and occupations.

Among the scout activities that tend to develop this larger community sense are games, athletic sports of all kinds, including team work and compet.i.tion between small, well-knit groups. Folk dancing and other forms of amus.e.m.e.nt, such as dramatics, pageants, and story-telling, serve a similar purpose because they all mean the possession of a resource not only for the right use of the girl's own leisure time, but for serving this need in the community.

METHODS.

The activities of the girl scouts are, of course, not peculiar to this organization. Every one of them is provided for elsewhere, in schools, clubs, and societies. But the way in which they are combined and coordinated about certain basic principles is peculiar to the girl scouts.

In the first place all these activities have a common motive, which is preparation for a fuller life for the individual, not only in her personal but in her social relations. It is believed that both the habits formed and the concrete information acquired contribute to the girls being ready to meet intelligently most of the situations that are likely to arise in their later life. This concept is expressed in the girl scout's motto, "Be prepared."

The method of preparation followed is that found in nature, whereby young animals and birds _play_ at doing all the things they will need to do well when they are grown and must feed and fend for themselves and their babies.

The heart of the girl scouts' laws is helpfulness, and so the scouts have a slogan: "Do a good turn daily." By following this in letter and spirit, helpfulness becomes second nature.

Because the girl scouts are citizens they know and respect the meaning of the flag, and one of the first things they learn is the pledge:

"I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Some observers have criticized the girl-scout organization because of its apparently military character. It is true that the girls wear a uniform of khaki and are grouped in patrols corresponding to the "fours"

in the Army; that they salute and learn simple forms of drill and signaling. But the reason they do these is because the military organization happens to be the oldest form of organization in the world, and it works. It is the best way men have found of getting a number of persons to work together. Following directions given to a group is quite a different matter from doing something alone, and most of us need special training in this. A group of eight has been found to work the best, because it is the largest number that can be handled by a person just beginning to be a leader, and, moreover, elementary qualities of leaders.h.i.+p seem to exist in just about the proportion of one in eight.

It is probably on this account that children take so kindly to the form, rather than because of any glamor of the army, though this must be admitted as a factor. In actual practice the drill and signaling take up a very small portion of the program and are nowhere followed as ends in themselves, but only as a means to an end.

_Uniform._--The uniform is simple, durable, and allows freedom of action. It is of khaki because this has been found to be the best wearing fabric and color. It is not easily torn and does not readily soil. Wearing it gives the girls a sense of belonging to a larger group, such as it is hard to get in any other way. It keeps constantly before them the fact that they represent a community to whose laws they have voluntarily subscribed, and whose honor they uphold. It is well, too, to have an impersonal costume, if for no other reason than to counteract the tendency of girls to concentrate upon their personal appearance. To have a neat, simple, useful garb is a novel experience to many an overdressed doll who has been taught to measure all worth by extravagance of appearance.